


jonah on the ocean

by socially_inept



Series: dig a little deeper [2]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-18 22:09:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22000642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/socially_inept/pseuds/socially_inept
Summary: //uma was not built to be on her own.//(what was a captain without her crew? what was a girl without her lungs, without her heart?)in which uma has a hard time adjusting to life without her crew.
Relationships: Implied Gil/Harry Hook/Uma
Series: dig a little deeper [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1579306
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	jonah on the ocean

**Author's Note:**

> quick mention that this is an au: after his coronation, ben never forgot about the rest of the kids on the isle of the lost and set about bringing them to auradon a few at a time.
> 
> as usual from me, this one isn’t beta read - so if you see something that doesn’t look quite right, feel free to let me know in the comments!

Uma was not built to be on her own. She was a social creature, always had been - from the time she could talk, she had talked to anyone. Customers at the chippy, other kids on the island, the friends who would one day become her crew.

After all, what was a captain without her crew?

( _Not much._ )

She didn’t feel like much, away from everything that had once made her important. She had been a queen in her own right back on the Isle; the wharf had been her kingdom and the street urchins there had been her people. Here she was just a girl - barely even a girl, more human than sea witch but still less human than the rest of them.

There, they had looked at her with reverence. Uma would ask Harry _what’s my name?_ and he would kneel when he said it. Here, it was all disgust. She couldn’t avoid their gazes no matter how much she shrank into herself.

Someone had painted **sea witch** on the door. Fairy Godmother had spluttered and ushered Uma inside - _don’t look at it, someone will be along to clean it, don’t look_ \- but it was too late. She told herself she didn’t care. She knew what she was, and she knew she wasn’t much to them.

How could she blame them? She didn’t feel like anything at all, without the rest of her people here with her. It felt wrong, _it was wrong_ , to stand here alone.

She was not built to be on her own. It was a cruel trick of fate that none of her crew had been in her Wave. Not a single one of them. How likely was that? How had she ended up like this?

From the other side of the door, she heard a loud whoop and then a laugh: high-pitched and wheezy. She heard running and shouting and another laugh, low and croaky. It made the emptiness of her own room even more suffocating.

In the mirror, she looked smaller than she’d ever looked. She was decked out in her usual clothes: head-to-toe leather, gloves and bangles and all. She’d left her hat with Gil - she wouldn’t need it, she had told him, he ought to keep it safe for her - but she felt like someone else without it.

A queen without her crown.

She felt like someone else anyway. Days in the too-hot, too-bright hospital had rendered her a sort of dizzy that she’d never experienced before. It wasn’t drunkenness, nor was it a concussion, but her mind felt hazy and she could have sworn her vision was a little off.

Not that she could go to Fairy Godmother about it - the damn woman would probably have her locked back up in the hospital, and Uma knew herself well enough to know that she couldn’t take another minute of solitude. She would drive herself insane.

She was meant to be around people - she had _always_ been around people, but here there was no one. No customers to piss off or shout at, no kids to chase away or feed.

(No crew.)

Uma sat down on the bed ( _her_ bed) and blinked blurriness and tears away, half aware that she ought to have something to drink. They had offered her water at the hospital and she had gulped it down like a woman parched - at home anything clean enough to drink was a blessing, and not one that she had the energy to question. She thought of her crew, always somewhere on their way to tipsy with stale beer. Sometimes, if they were lucky, one of them would grab a crate of water or ale when the barge came in: but that was rare.

She felt suddenly nauseous. How could she be here? How could she _relax_ here, knowing that they were there? Knowing that they could be suffering? She should have been there with them. They should have been here with her.

(No crew no crew _no crew no **crew no crew no crew NO CREW NO CREW NO**_ )

She imagined Harry’s hands on her cheek, calloused and dirty but gentle as anything. _Breathe, Uma. You have to breathe._

She sucked in a shallow breath, then another. A deeper one, now. _In, hold, out._

This was the worst kind of torture she could have envisioned for herself. Pain, she could take. Loneliness would kill her.

(Not before she killed whoever had done this, whoever had written her name down first and separated her from her crew.)

There would be five Waves in total - that had been the proclamation - with something like three or four months between them. Mal and her rotten group had counted has the first. Uma and half a dozen other ~~un~~ fortunate souls had been chosen for the second. Harry and Gil and the others could be anywhere on the list - the third or the fourth or the fifth. How far away was the fifth Wave?

It wasn’t a question; she already knew the answer. She had worked it out as soon as she’d read her name on that damn list. It could be a year before she saw Harry or Gil again, maybe even longer if something went wrong. How was she supposed to survive a _year_ in Auradon without them?

(What was a captain without her crew? What was a girl without her lungs, without her heart?)

How long could they go without _her_? Would the other gangs still respect her territory, now that Harry was at the helm? He was vicious as a dog, but he was no strategist and he was no diplomat - she found herself hoping that he still had control, that fear of his wrath kept everyone in line. She hoped a lot of things: that her guys weren’t still hanging about the chip shop now that there was no one there to feed them; that the tiny dock kids she hadn’t seen on her last day were somewhere else in Auradon, not floating under the quay; that the ratty blankets she had left for Gil were giving him some comfort, even just a little. Mostly just that they were all okay, now that she had gone.

(What was a captain without her crew? What was a crew without their captain?)

She pulled her bag up from the floor, holding it like a pet in her lap, and ran her fingers over the material. Tattered as it was, torn in some places and discoloured in others, it was a precious thing. Harry had given it to her, when Gil had sounded out the words and they’d realised she would have to go.

 _Something to remember me by_ , he had said, smile crooked - and she had laughed and taken it, and taken his coat and two of his shirts too. As if she needed them. As if she could ever forget him.

Uma had hardly forgotten the smell of the sea, but the scent of salt was more powerful than she had expected. It filled her nose and lungs, so much better than the smell of bleach and soap - another sense she was reclaiming, after her awful stay at the hospital.

Gil’s shirt was still damp when she pulled it over her head, and it still smelled like him: musky and fishy and nothing at all like the _lavender and rosewater_ shit they’d washed her clothes with. Harry’s ugly red coat had always carried that leather smell she couldn’t stand, with a hint of blood. Harry always smelled like blood. She had stopped asking after it early on.

Sammy’s trousers were loose on her, but she pulled the drawstrings tight and double-knotted them. She tied Jonas’ scarf around her waist and Gonzo’s bandana into her hair. Gloves from Maria, a necklace from Des, rings from Bonny, wristbands from Murph.

(What was a captain without her crew? - but she wasn’t without her crew. Even here, the furthest place from home, she wasn’t without them.)

She played with one of Bonny’s rings, too large for her fingers.

(She was never without them.)

She felt more like this. More of what, she wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. She was just _more_.

In the mirror, she looked less like a girl and more like a sea witch than ever. She looked like she’d come straight off the dock: smelled like it, too. She looked like all of them - mostly Harry, with the grimy red and the dark rings around her eyes. She missed them. She would always miss them, like they were part of her.

Going without them was like going without her limbs. But there were peg legs, and there were hooks. She would have to make do. Pirates always did.

The words had been scrubbed off the door by the time she opened it, but that hardly registered. There was only one word that really mattered to her, and no silly hero’s child in Auradon could ever take it from her, or use it against her.

Uma didn’t look back at the room, didn’t look back at her reflection, but she did look down at Maria’s gloves. She rubbed the thick material of Harry’s coat between her thumb and forefinger.

Under her breath, she said, “Captain,” and it tasted like salt water on her tongue.

**Author's Note:**

> the title from "movement" by hozier. thanks for reading!
> 
> -dan xx


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